They are charged with allowing the child, Kalib Henderson, to be abused in March 2012. The boy suffered a blow to the head that resulted in skull fractures and bleeding of the brain, and he died a week later, according to Ottawa County Prosecutor’s Office records.

Judge Bruce Winters will hear DeBacco’s and Assistant Prosecutor Emily Gerber’s arguments in the case during three hearings next week in Ottawa County Common Pleas Court.

The hearings are at 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Wednesday and 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Gerber said in court records the doctors should be allowed to testify because they are experts in their field and have testified at area courts in the past as expert witnesses, according to court records.

The boy’s injuries became apparent while Henderson and Hutchinson, who is not the child’s father, were at a dinner gathering with friends and family at an Erie Township home, according to prosecutor’s office records.

When Hutchinson went to check on the baby — left alone with other children in another room — he said he heard a “boom,” records show. A 3-year-old had picked up the baby and dropped him on his head, Hutchinson told authorities.

The baby took a deep breath and then stopped breathing, Hutchinson told authorities. The boy died at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Doctors who reviewed the case — Dr. Randall Schlievert and Dr. Bethany Mohr — said they thought the child had been abused, according to prosecutor’s office records.

Schlievert opined in court records that the child suffered an abusive head trauma and that Henderson and Hutchinson were not being honest about what happened. Schlievert is the director of the child abuse program and vice president of academic affairs for Mercy Northern District, which includes St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo.

“It is common in abusive head trauma cases to blame the injuries on a small child (who cannot be interviewed or deny that some injury took place),” he wrote in his reports.

Mohr, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, said in her report she felt the boy was physically abused before the gathering.

Dr. Bader Cassin also gave opinions on the case, according to court records.

The doctors’ comments are just opinions and based on the history of the case, DeBacco wrote in court records.

“The information provided by the state of Ohio amounts to ‘anecdotal’ information, that is, information for which there is an absence of documentation and proof and no sound way to determine it’s reliability in the scientific community,” DeBacco wrote. “Dr. Schlievert basis of opinion is based on conjecture.”

They use phrases such as “I do not feel” and the “explanation offered is unlikely,” he said.